Laundered Thoughts......

This evening I decided to take my ever so bold and daring first steps to the laundromat 2 blocks from my house. Normally I wouldn't fret over something so silly as washing my laundry, but tonight it was raining flood drops down my face, leaving me to look like a not so pretty and not to nice drenched kitten.

I made the trek out my door with my rolling suitcase filled with 4 weeks worth of dirty laundry, down 2 flights of stairs, up two blocks, over the river and through the gas station...to... grandmothers???.. laundromat I go.

This all started yesterday. So allow me to explain that yesterday I had no such luck. I walked down to see where the cleaning of the clothes happens, but realized I needed to get cash (Don't get me started on trying to find an ATM on this side of town) after finding an Automated Teller Machine I proceeded to ask the clerk who owned the machine if he could kindly "break" a twenty. What I received back was in broken English but I translated it to, "No, we do not give change here." I then asked where I might find a place to give me change and with an angry expression I was asked to leave and told to try next door at the Chinese Meat Market.

Upon walking out I found it slightly comical that I had just walked out of an Italian Pizza joint and was proceeding into a Chinese Meat Market right next door. I figured, "Hey, only in San Francisco do you get diversity like that."

Walking into that market was probably the worst thing I could have done. Two things came to mind that I will never forget. I am going to sum up those two things as, The Rules of The Chinese Meat Market:

1.) If you do not speak Chinese, you better look Chinese. If you are neither of the two, go somewhere else.

Unless..

2.) If you do not look Chinese and you do not speak Chinese, than you best be buying something. If not, go somewhere else.

I, however, had to learn this lesson the hard way. Being yelled at in Chinese while being fed the "shoo fly" hand motion told me that I did not speak nor look Chinese and I was not going to buy something. I needed to go somewhere else.

That somewhere else was Popeye's, diagonally across the street from the two places I now call "WTF!" and "Oh Hell NO!". I proceeded to try and enter this establishment but was "blocked" by many of the people outside. I had my iPod on so that I purposely could not hear them. After one step forward and still shut down I left the area only to be yelled at again in some language I could not understand over Elton John singing, "...b-b-b-Benny and the Jets" It amazes me the type of people living in this world. To be rude to a perfect stranger and not even care. Who is teaching these kids that it's ok to act like that? Certianly not my parents, that's for sure.

After temporary insanity set in, I found myself at home thinking, I can't believe I live in a place like this. Then decided to try again today.

Today as I was saying earlier was much more successful. I had change for my twenty; my laundry was packed and ready to go in the rolling suitcase and I was in the mood for singing in the rain.

Doing laundry wasn't as bad as I thought it would have been (getting there was half the battle) considering all of my whirlwind experiences from the night before. It only cost me $6.50 and an hour and a half of my time; which, in my mind, was totally worth it.

Somewhere between listening to FRIENDS and folding my teeny tiny underwear (Oh, and some creepy man on a cell phone staring at me and speaking to another person in a language I don't understand....yet again) I found myself asking this question:

What if the next time you started dating someone, you had to go through their laundry (clean, of course) to find out what type of person would they be and would you want to date them. If you're currently attached, would you still have chosen to be with that person if you had only met their clothing before ever seeing their face?

Realizing the possibilities one would have while surfing through piles of my underwear, thigh high socks, custom made dresses and too many scarves, I came up with more questions:

How do clothes define someone while they are not wearing them?

Would people come to the same conclusions?
What kind of judgments can you put on a person's clothing, without ever seeing them in it?

In my own daily life, would I still have chosen the boyfriend that I currently have?
Would I have looked through his clothing and decided to still be with him?

Can seeing the clothing of a person you've never met change your mind about meeting them?

So many questions.. so many answers.. I look forward to hearing yours. Please take the time and let me know your thoughts on the subject. I love hearing the thoughts of the people around me.

Yippie!!